The Prime Minister rebuffed the World Bank’s proposal on tiger conservation in India, thus negating the claim of the World Bank President Robert Zoellick who indicated otherwise, “As we launch this initiative, the Government of India has expressed its strong interest in working with us, ” in his speech at the ‘Signature Event’ which marked the launch of the World Bank’s Tiger Conservation Initiative on June 9, 2008 in Washington. “
This comes as a huge relief to conservationists as there was much apprehension that India would succumb to the World Bank lobby which was working overtime to make India part of its tiger conservation initiative, primarily because they desperately needed India’s involvement in the initiative to maintain their credibility—for all the problems and threats, India still harbours the maximum number of wild tigers.